Nothing But Blue Skies
by D-Watson
Summary: In his dreams, she is always happy, always smiling at him like she doesn't have a care in the world. But reality has other plans. Postmanga, romance and bromance rolled into one.
1. Fake Plastic Flowers

_**Summary:** In his dreams, she is always happy, always smiling at him like she doesn't have a care in the world. But reality has other plans. [postmanga, romance and bromance rolled into one]_

_**Trigun** © Yasuhiro Nightow_

_This story follows the manga plotline and characterizations. It was inspired by a wonderful set of drabbles called On Marriage by alicorn9, who said all I wanted to say and more in just 200 words. You can read it on the Trigun Shots community on LiveJournal._

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><p><strong>I – Fake Plastic Flowers<strong>

If he closed his eyes, he could pretend Wolfwood was there, across the table in some dingy bar, swearing under his breath because the barkeep waters the booze, and the stuff they serve there is too mild for his taste as it is. He could pretend, but the church bell rings every half hour, and the sound of a church bell always brings with it a strangled cry and the thump of a half-full whiskey bottle hitting the ground. So he doesn't pretend. Looking at Wolfwood's grave is easier than staring down the memory of his bloody, lifeless body on a couch that used to be just around the corner from where he's standing.

The orphanage looks much better now. The walls are bright yellow and decorated with chalk paintings of eight-legged cat-dog-birdthings, people with square heads and other ridiculously surreal imagery only kids can make sense of. The rubble was cleared up a long time ago, gone, along with the blood and the couch, as if nothing bad ever happened there. Wolfwood would be pleased.

Livio is at the orphanage, too, just like he is every year on this day (and probably on some other dates, as well). He comes out to greet Vash with the humble anxiety of a sinner, but otherwise stays well enough away. It's hard to tell whether he does it just to give Vash some privacy, or because he can't stand to look him in the eye, knowing what he took from him in this yard, five years ago to this day. Vash suspects the latter. He's had plenty of not-awkward drinks with Livio in places that weren't here, on dates that weren't remarkable in any way.

Auntie always leaves flowers – plastic ones, the real thing is still a commodity around these parts – and lights a candle. A white candle and pink carnations that look like they were made by someone who had never seen a carnation in his life. Vash brings the booze. There are many things that he'll never know about Wolfwood, but he does know for sure that he enjoyed a good whiskey. Wild Turkey. The best for the best, as the ads would say. He empties the bottle and tries not to think about the fact that Livio already looks about 55 and worse for wear.

There are notes on the grave, as well. Neatly folded notes with messages to Big Bro Nick. There used to be more of them. A mountain of them, four years ago. And the year before that, they fell from the sky like snow.

"They've just grown up, moved away. They still remember you."

At least Vash hopes they do. He knows for sure that Milly and Meryl do. That they would have liked to be here today, if he had the guts to tell them where he was going. To tell them he was going anywhere at all.

"You know, I think the Big Girl had a thing for you," he says. "She's married now, but she still mentions you from time to time. And she always has this sad look in her eyes when she does."

(Meryl tries not to mention Wolfwood in his presence. Or Knives, or Rem, or Legato, for that matter. Meryl is golden.)

If he closed his eyes, he could see the four of them drinking themselves stiff on the SEEDs ship. He could pretend that night never ended, because, as far as perfection goes on this planet, it was a perfect night in every way.

He could pretend. He's been doing that a lot lately.

The church bell starts ringing. _Thump _goes the whiskey bottle. Not the empty bottle he's holding. The half-full bottle that only exists in his head. He sighs and thinks to himself that it was probably a bad year to try and do this without the cushion of a good buzz. Maybe he shouldn't have treated Wolfwood to _all_ of the Wild Turkey, after all. He sets the empty bottle on the ground. _No thumping, thankyouverymuch._

"I'm in over my head, Wolfwood," he says, rubbing his eyes behind a pair of sunglasses that look nothing like the ones he'd sported for the better half of the last century. His hair is different, too, though not by much. It's jet black, but otherwise just as spiky as ever. He gave up on the idea of taming it when he realized the legend of Vash the Stampede, the legendary gunman, the destroyer of cities – and lately, the misunderstood freedom fighter – made it a fairly popular hairstyle across No Man's Land. Good for blending in with the crowd, ironically.

Besides, wearing it down makes him look like a teenager. Meryl is nearing thirty now. He can't very well allow himself to look like a teenager anymore.

"I don't think she's happy," he whispers into the wind. "Sometimes I think she'd be better off without me."

But, of course, she wouldn't. Not now. Maybe if he had just stayed the hell away five years ago and let her think he really was dead, she would have found a guy who'd prefer having living confidants over dead ones. But that's the thing about dead confidants. You can be damn sure your secrets are safe with them. You can be damn sure no one is going to get hurt when you admit you've walked into a relationship just because you were curious at the time, and now you can't walk out without breaking both her heart and your own _and_ have the door hit you on the ass as you exit.

Vash chuckles, a vacant laugh to match the vacant surroundings.

"I could really use a stern talking to right about now," he says to the cross Punisher, half-expecting Wolfwood's arm to burst out of the ground and beat him over the head with the thing for being such a wuss. "Not many people call me an idiot and mean it these days."

There's no comment forthcoming, of course, but Vash always leaves room for one, just in case. He always expects to hear some words of wisdom carried on the wind, some cryptic advice he could decipher just in time to help him out of whatever pickle he's currently in. Alas, no such luck.

Dead confidants. They have their drawbacks, too.

He's been practicing holding the waterworks in. Wolfwood would be pleased about that, as well. Not once has he let Meryl see him cry since they've started dating. Coincidentally (or not), not once has he seen _her_ cry, either. It's just that, sometimes, when he's alone and thinking about dead friends and living girlfriends and there's not a drop of hooch in sight to take the edge off...

"Wolfwood..."

They say practice makes perfect. He's not a pro just yet.

In his dreams, she is always happy, always smiling at him like she doesn't have a care in the world. Wearing a see-through chiffon dress that flutters in the breeze, she is eternally young, eternally perfect, eternally his. But when he wakes up to find that the pillow next to his own is suspiciously damp and vacant, he knows it's all as fake and plastic as the fake plastic flowers Auntie leaves on Wolfwood's grave.

It could fool you, but only if you've never seen the real thing.

* * *

><p><em>Thought I'd try a different angle to the ever-popular Vash And Meryl Get Together bit and try to write something about the relationship a few years down the line that would make the actual getting together seem easy by comparison. As sweet as Vash is, there's no point denying that he's a deeply traumatized individual behind that Stepford smile of his, especially after all the crap the manga hurls at him. Life with someone like that can't possibly be easy. I've planned three chapters, but the way things are going, it's probably going to be closer to five. Over 5k words, in any case. <em>

_Feel free to go nuts on the review button. I love feedback of any kind!_


	2. 30 Seconds

**II - 30 Seconds**

She's used to waking up alone. Vash has always been an early riser, and now that he actually has a job to get to in he morning, he usually starts training before the break of dawn.

She's used to breakfast waiting for her on the dining table. Donuts. Pancakes. Nothing home made. Nothing she actually enjoys eating. But it's the thought that counts.

What she's not used to, what she'll never be used to, is little white notes with little white lies that come with the package.

_Double shift. Don't wait up._ And a doodle that's probably supposed to represent Vash blowing her a kiss. It looks more like a potato flipping her the bird. Feels like it, too, all things considered.

Two and a half years. They've been living together for two and a half years now. He somehow managed not to run off and die even once in all that time. It's quite an achievement, she should pat him on the back for that.

After Jenora rock, recalled from the assignment. Subject presumed dead. Two years of incurable boredom and wondering what might have been.

After Augusta, seven months of worrying and regret. Captured by Knives. Soon to be dead. Sorry, no chance to apologize, but the good news is, the world is about to end anyway.

After October, half a year. Rumors of death. The wanted posters are there just in case, really.

After the raid in New Oregon, definitely, without a doubt, deader than dead. No body, but, you know; the Earth troops know what they're doing.

A tattered red coat and an unspoken confession. Two years of trying to forget, of dating guys that were never tall enough, never ate their donuts with the right flavors, never called her anything other than her given name.

She kept the coat. That's all he left behind the day they officially got the drop on him. It was supposed to be a government trophy, undoubtedly to be hung in the office of some Earth official like a pair of antlers, but the prize goes to the winner, and she managed to outrun fifty men and ten times as many bullets that day. It's been hanging in her closet ever since. That coat is a legend. You can't get rid of things like that, no matter how much looking at them makes you cry. They should be preserved for posterity. They should be kept safe, in case the owner should want to come back and claim them some day. After all, legends never die.

He's Alex Saverem now, presumably after the would-be father he never knew. Presumably. She's Meryl, after the great-grandmother he has heard all about. Short and uneventful though her pre-Vash existence was by comparison, she filled him in on every detail of it, at one point of another. When asked about his pre-Meryl life, he always takes the first opportunity to segue into some story about a vicar in a tutu or the time he downed 32 whiskey shots in just as many minutes and mistakenly ended up in the morgue (true story). He's a funny guy. He likes making people laugh, even if they're laughing at him. She's lucky to have him, the girls at work say.

When he came back to get the coat, they started sharing a closet before he ever got around to leaving. It was too fast. Everything was moving too fast, like it always does when he's around. She was enjoying a cocktail with Milly, having almost completely gotten over the fact that no guy will ever be tall, funny, annoying, sweet, screwed-up, charming or dangerous enough, and that it was high time she settled for less like every sensible woman eventually supposedly does. Then, all of a sudden, a round of drinks they didn't order was delivered to their table, compliments of one completely adequately tall, funny, annoying, sweet, screwed-up, charming and dangerous stranger, and she knew that settling for less was once again out the window. The same fifteen story window she was going to hurl his ass out of if he ever again dared make her pretend like she thought he was dead. Because, of course, she never believed it. Not for a minute. Really.

Some time later, the two of them were in a bar yet again. It's hard to tell how much later – hours, days, weeks, maybe – but it was fast. Faster than time normally moves. One minute, Vash was chugging down pints like they were giving them away for free, the next, there was an arm around Meryl's shoulder and drunken apologies in her ear. She was drunk, too, but not nearly as much. Sober enough to know what she was doing, but drunk enough to be able to convincingly deny it in the morning. Or at least that's what she liked to believe when she stared him down and asked him to state his intentions, or go pretend-die in a bloody shootout somewhere he hasn't already been shot at before – if he could find such a place – and leave her to cry and get over him and get married to some other dork already.

Of course, that's not the way she put it. The way she put it was probably so mushy that her brain decided to edit out the embarrassing details and stick with the bloody shootout ultimatum. Faced with the query that definitely did not include mentions of bloody shootouts, Vash's face put on a lavish thirty second production of Oh Crap What Did I Get Myself Into, and suddenly chances of successfully attributing the fallout of this supremely ill-conceived plan to two Bloody Marys in the morning started looking kind of slim.

That is, until he kissed her like he really meant it.

Half an hour later, she watched, disgusted, as he threw up in an alley behind the bar. Three weeks later, he moved in with her.

It's been pancakes and donuts and, occasionally, little white notes ever since. Checking the closet in the morning, just to make sure taking the key out of the lock in the evening will be worth the bother.

Little white notes with little white lies and doodles that never quite manage to get the point across.

And that's about the shape of it.

* * *

><p><em>Oh, crap. Think fast. You can't shoot your way out of this one, Outlaw Formerly Known as Vash the Stampede.<em>

_When did she even get so close? Was she sitting this close all evening? Sure doesn't feel like it. It probably happened a minute ago, when she called him _Mister_ Alex Saverem and asked him what he was after in that silly little business voice that was probably supposed to hide the fact that she was nervous for some reason. Yes, that must be it. What was it he said? Two things? Only ever been after two things, my fair lady. That's right. And she said "love and peace" and tried not to look amused. _

_But then her head got huge all of a sudden and she asked him to clarify which one of those things he was after in that particular moment, and, well... _

_Obviously, her head didn't increase in size – that's just not how heads work – but it certainly did get into his face, like his face owed her face money or something. _

_But no, she never looked like this when she asked him to pay her back for spotting him. _

_Wait a minute! He could kiss her. That's what she wants, isn't it? What else could she want, looking so hopeful and non-threatening and trying so very hard not to let the shivers show? It's something out a movie, something decidedly Not of out His Life. Oh man, oh man, oh man..._

_Did he look like he wanted to kiss her? He must have. Either that, or he looked like he was about to drop dead. Last time she looked at him like that, he thought it was the last thing he was ever going to see of this world– and that it was a lot more than he deserved. But she was crying then, why does he always make her cry? She held his head in her lap, stayed his hand when he aimed at the Ark from the rubble of October, hoping only that death waited for him at the end of it all. When he was drowning in the darkness he so very much deserved, it was _her_ voice that beckoned him to come back and finish what he started. It was _her_ he made a promise to, and then somehow managed to screw it up all up again and probably make her cry some more._

_Maybe if he kissed her, she could forget all about that. Forget all her worrying and tears, forget she ever saw July, because no one should ever have to see something like that._

_Kiss and make it better._

_Of course, he can't. What a terrible idea! But what if he could? He had settled down once, with Lina, and was happy. At least until Wolfwood showed up to remind him that you can't always get what you want._

_But that was then, and this is now. Could he get what he wants now, just this once? What does he even want, really? Maybe if he stole just one little kiss, he would know for sure._

_Besides, it's been _such_ a long time since he last kissed a girl. And even when he did – back in a past so distant, it would get him laughed at in male company – and apologized for it and ran off to sober up, some big oaf with twenty piercings on his face and two-and-a-half teeth in his mouth came around to charge him for it. Charging for a kiss! How awful is that?_

_How much would he have to pay if he kissed Meryl now? A slap on the face? A kick in the guts? How much will he pay if he really falls for her? Five years? Ten? A hundred and ten years of wishing for the loving wife he buried?_

_It's too much. It's not worth it. An eternity for one little kiss. For touching the elusive mayfly of love. That's why they call it elusive, right? It never lasts._

_Better to have loved and lost, they say. He knows better, but he can't help loving just the same. Why resist? You can't help being who you are. There will always be loss. Rem loved Alex and said she was a better person for it._

_But Alex died, and so did Rem. Wolfwood died. Meryl will die. She'll die, everyone dies. Everyone except for him. He's alone. Not even Knives will be there at the end of it all._

_He's had it up to here with loneliness, truth be told._

_Ah, screw it! You only live once. Even if that once never ends. She's backing down. Her smile is fading. It's now or never, Vash. Make up your mind._

_It's now or never..._

Ring. Ring. _Thump_.

Blasted bell.

There's a reason Vash never meditates for longer than three seconds. He never did manage to learn how to do it without falling asleep in the process. And as much as the sound of this particular church bell makes him cringe, it's probably just as well that it woke him up, because it's two in the afternoon already, and the road home is very long indeed. Women, as he's learned during his brief venture into domestic life, are awfully suspicious of double shifts. If he ever got into a situation where he'd have to make up a story about a triple shift, Meryl would probably make him sleep outside. Possibly by pushing him out the window.

She's not going to be pleased when she sees his clothes, either. Trying to beat the dirt off of your pants after a couple of hours of sitting in it will only make your hands ache.

There's too many things a guy has to answer for when he's living with a woman.

"Gotta go," he says. "You know how she gets when I make her worry."

The Punisher nods with understanding. Or maybe it's just his imagination.

"Later, Wolfwood."

No point hurrying now that he's already missed the two o'clock bus, but if he hears the goddamn bell one more time, he's gonna have to eat the ground he soaked with that whiskey. It's because of things like that that he decided to lay off the hooch for a while. There's a fine line between a social drinker and an all out alcoholic, and when you start actively seeking out the company of people who like their booze a bit too much, you're probably a bit closer to the latter than you are to the former.

Anyway, meditation. Thinking about life and love with your eyes closed. Maybe his brain _was_ trying to tell him something, even if it chose to do it in his sleep. It was such a sweet dream, too. Historically accurate, as well. You don't get to dream sweet, historically accurate dreams just any day of the week. Quite the reverse, actually. Historically accurate dreams tend to be nightmares, like all historically accurate accounts usually are.

This dream, too, will one day be part of a nightmare.

But man, oh, _man_, did that feel good. The tinge of pepper on her lips. The smell of her hair (something synthetic, like everything else on this planet, but nice, nonetheless). Her shoe brushing against his calf under the table. The way she knocked on his teeth with her tongue, all business-like. Like her tongue was there to deliver a pack of donuts to his tongue in hopes that their future cooperation will be mutually satisfactory. Bernardelli sure knows how to pick em.

When she first invited him over, ostensibly for a cup of coffee she knew he didn't drink, he made a right mess of things, didn't he? They say it's like riding a bicycle, but just because you've paid for a few laps once or twice doesn't mean you're automatically gonna be winning the cyclo-cross every time you put your ass on the seat. And besides, it's a bad metaphor, he was never any good at driving things.

Training, and lots of it. That's what he needed. That's what he said when he wiggled his eyebrows and demanded a rematch a few hours later. And she actually giggled. She called him an idiot, but she giggled and kissed him head to toe like there was nothing unusual about him at all. Like he could choose to have a life where getting into bed with a girl was the most exciting part of his day.

It's not easy getting used to that sort of life when most of your days started with explosions and ended with earthquakes for the last century or so. Depending on your point of view, you could either say that the sex is _that_ good or that your life is otherwise _that _boring. It's actually both and neither. You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you might get what you need, isn't that how the old Earth song goes?

He tried, he really did. He's trying. The city of March didn't have any openings in the wanted criminals section (tough market on this planet), so he got a job at the plant instead. A manual job a monkey with a wrench could excel at. It's not as bad as it sounds. It's not bad at all, really. He got a manual job there, as opposed to a _not_-manual job somewhere else because Plants are his sisters and being around them makes him feel like he's not going to be the only one toasting to the end of the world, whenever that comes around.

They'll die, too, eventually. Vash and all of his sisters. It's just going to be a very long time coming. Hell, if he wanted to die tomorrow, all he'd have to do is try and sprout a wing or two, and he'd be gone before the last of the feathers formed. But that's not the point. Life is great. There's always stuff to do, people to meet, wrongs to make right. He's got no bones to pick with living forever, as such. He just wants everyone else to do it with him. Even the fat waiter from Joe's that secretly spits in his scrambled eggs because he has a thing for Meryl and doesn't have a more refined way of expressing his affection.

Everyone. But that's not how things work.

You can't always get what you want.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: Alex? Ericks? I've read a fan theory that "Ericks" might have been either a mistake in the English translation, or a mistake in the Japanese transcription of "Alex". Might not be legit, but I liked the idea.


	3. Underwear

**III – Underwear**

They had been dating for a couple of weeks, give or take. The usual getting-to-know-you thing that people do in order to build trust and make sure they're not about to let a clingy psychopath into their lives. In retrospect, for two long-time friends who had literally stormed an apocalypse together, that seemed somewhat unnecessary, but Vash went along with it simply because the novelty of living a normal life with someone without having to tell lies was too appealing. There were lunches and dinners, an occasional carnival, and even a pick-nick on a nearby cliff (that ended disastrously when a sandworm swallowed their sandwich basket for starters and went on to pursue the two of them for the main course). "Why don't we just shoot the damn thing," Meryl shouted, all derringers akimbo. Ah, good old Meryl, with her short temper and an extensive collection of handguns. It felt like the old days, before everything went to hell in a hand basket, which was exactly the sort of vibe Vash needed to once again shift the never-ending dramedy of his life closer to the comedy spectrum.

Still, there were times when he wanted to cut the crap and _really_ put the moves on her. Much as his mind was reluctant to get with the program, there was no running from the fact that his body reacted to her touch like a plasma globe, shooting electricity from a high voltage core to wherever her fingers grazed his skin. Maybe it was just that being close to someone made him realize what a lonely existence he had led before. It thrilled him and frightened him to know that she was his for the asking, that his life was becoming less and less his own.

He never did ask, feeding himself a host of lame excuses, the most prominent of which featured the painful memory of her losing the plot at the sight of his true nature. Even then, he was vaguely aware that he was underestimating her, that holding back on account of a fear so evidently overcome was just a more dignified way of succumbing to his own perverse need for self-punishment. Granted, he had an entire foot and over 50 pounds on her, but when it came to true courage, Meryl was a giant towering over the wasteland of his failed attempts to attain the one thing he had desired above all else for as long as he could remember. Already, her love had set roots in him, and in its unpredictable, tree-like fashion, started rearranging the very fiber of his being.

There were always women, here and there, who would proposition him out of boredom, or gratitude, or attraction, or _something_. Most of them had no idea who he really was (which suited him just fine), or what he was (which, for all intents and purposes, didn't really matter), or what to expect once the clothes started piling up on the floor (which, admittedly, did not suit him at all). The things he's had to do to weasel out of some of these situations! Especially in Inepril, when his own body stubbornly refused to cooperate with the plan to send two gorgeous, undoubtedly skillful ladies off to show some other schmuck a good time. A blonde and a brunette... What more could a guy possibly ask for, except maybe a redhead to complete the triad?

Alas, Meryl would never know of such heroism.

There were always women, here and there, who would proposition him, but as the years went by and the stitches spread out like a rash and his uninvited entourage of angry people with loaded guns started hitting nuthouse levels, Vash eventually decided that getting laid was more trouble than it was worth. He could think of few better ways to kill the mood than having to explain just how he ended up looking like he'd spent the last 20 years stealing people's body parts and sewing them onto himself _badly. _Not to mention that, in those days, there was always someone skulking about outside, just waiting for Vash to lower his guard long enough get blown up, along with whomever happened to be on top of him at that moment.

Thankfully, Alex Saverem had no reason to fear being randomly blown up. _Yet._

As for the other thing, Meryl was something of a unique case. She had already seen him naked, wounded, depressed, enraged, flirty, sulky, drunk, half-dead, quarter-dead, brain-dead, on good hair days and bad, and even with stuff sprouting out of him like something out of a pulp novel. There wasn't a whole lot he could do to shock her, and that made him feel at ease. Besides, he cared about her. Even before they officially became an item, Vash knew that if there ever was a woman he'd be comfortable having meaningful, non-commercial sex with, it was her. So when _she_ decided to put the moves on _him_, as openly as her undoubtedly fine upbringing would allow, he found little reason not to go along with it. After all, it _was_ him that changed the entire nature of their relationship, back when he decided to dictate the answer to her drunken inquiry directly into her mouth.

"Oh, shoot," she said, "Looks like I'm all out of coffee."

"That's okay," he replied. "I just remembered I don't drink coffee."

It was hard to believe that it was as easy as that, and, of course, it wasn't. But he was doing so well at first! The bed was comfy, the light was dimmed, the room didn't contain any stuffed animals or those creepy porcelain dolls that always seem to stare at you no matter where you put them. He was sitting on the bed, Meryl standing between his knees in a dress so pretty, it made him feel bad about the worn out tie-dye shirt he was hiding under his jacket. And when she lifted the skirt like a veil before his eyes, the view only got better.

She wore classy underwear, the sort that revealed a hefty degree of premeditation. All wires and straps and lace and silk neatly packing a pair of breasts that fit so perfectly into his palms. He felt like he was stuck in a fairy tale, some weird, hardcore version of Cinderella, only with groping instead of glass shoes. Vash kissed her with old playfulness and new intensity, hoping to impart with actions what he could only approximate with words. _You weren't wrong. I won't let you down. I really like your boobs. _

In an instance of coordination failure, Meryl toppled over him, their combined weight bouncing on a bed that was clearly unused to mistreatment. There was much rolling and squirming and giggling as she negotiated the buckles and zippers on his jacket with little success and lots of frustration. The fact that Vash was doing everything in his power to distract her probably wasn't helping, either. For every small victory on the ridiculously complicated front of his jacket, he retaliated by doing something to make Meryl's mind draw a disproportionately lengthy blank. He supposed it was juvenile on his part, but he just couldn't stop himself from turning it all into a game of one-upmanship.

"Goddamn straightjacket," she spat, having been driven to the limit of her patience.

"Go on," he teased, nipping a patch of skin at the pit of her neck. "You're almost there." Meryl wasn't buying it. She shoved him back onto the mattress in a forceful display of authority that instantly made his jeans feel a whole lot tighter.

"No! Take it off."

Vash propped himself on his elbows, infinitely amused by her belligerence and more than a little curious as to how far she was prepared to take it.

"Why don't you _make _me take it off?"

Meryl huffed, crossed her arms and put on her best poker face. "Alright. Take it off, or I go out to buy some coffee."

Vash pouted, conceding defeat. "You're no fun," he whined, switching their positions in one swift motion. Meryl stuck her tongue out at him in a previously unfathomable, but not unwelcome assurance that she, too, could be immature if she felt like it. _Zip pop pop_ went the jacket, and Vash's hideous hippie shirt joined it on the floor in short order.

True to her word, she didn't run away. Not that Vash seriously thought anyone worth their salt _would_ go that far. But it sure was nice of her to so convincingly treat the sight of his mangled torso like it was something that was actually appealing. There was no kinky fetish he wasn't prepared to satisfy in order to show his appreciation. He unhooked her bra with two fingers and a flick of a wrist, eager to demonstrate the fact that he can do that, and that was pretty much when things stopped going so well for him.

If Vash had to describe in one word what the situation soon escalated into, he'd probably say a _mess_. He smoldered with the heat of her exposed flesh burning against his, and if Meryl previously had doubts as to whether she was turning him on, she presently had ample assurance digging into her thigh. Vash almost felt like apologizing for the inconvenience, but then he remembered that, in situations where the boner wasn't accidental, it was generally considered a good thing. His fingers brushed her lips, slid down her chin, her neck, over her left breast and down her flank, losing momentum somewhere north of the rim of her panties. The realization that he was about three seconds and one flimsy layer of silk away from being in bed with a completely naked chick caused him to pause. It was the sort of pause athletes observe right before they go for the gold, a little space in which to mentally pat yourself on the back and say _go get her, tiger_.

Unfortunately, Meryl mistook it for wavering. She wrapped her hand over his, a tiny set of of pink fingers with perfectly manicured nails against the jagged edges of a hand that could have been called his good one, if it didn't look like something a sandworm chewed up and then spat back out again. It was meant to be a gesture of encouragement, but all it did was set off a cascade of doubt. Vash peeled himself off of her, supporting his weight on the prosthetic arm that was to the rest of his limbs what a designated driver is to a bunch of drunken frat boys.

The sight of Meryl lying underneath him, smooth and flawless and impossibly tiny, suddenly reminded Vash that he was a walking, talking safety hazard with metal sticking out of him like blades on a Swiss knife. Talk about safe sex. Already, her skin carried an imprint of the metal grate on his chest, and, for a moment, he seriously considered lying still and letting her do her thing. Figured it would reduce the chances of an embarrassing trip to the emergency room, even if did make Meryl feel like she was screwing a wooden plank. Normal people give their partners STDs, but Vash was _special_. With his luck, even tetanus wasn't out of the question.

Worst of all, that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Everything, every _single_ tired argument in favor of not getting involved with Meryl took up residence where nothing but reckless abandon ought to have been. Her age, his genes, the emotional baggage he didn't want to inflict on her – all of a sudden, her very consent seemed questionable, in light of the impaired judgment she displayed by following him around for years with no regard for her own personal safety. She was crazy, that's what she was! What kind of a guy takes advantage of a crazy woman? That was certainly not how he was raised.

"Vash..."

Besides, what if sex was just one of those things he sucked at? Like driving or chess or falling asleep sober? Generations of people had been born and grown up since he last got laid, and even then, it wasn't for free. _No, really, sugar, you're the best I've ever had_ is not exactly the sort of feedback a guy can put much stock into. Especially when it comes before you've finished counting the bills.

"Vash?"

He tried to imagine just how badly he could screw up, and his brain happily obliged by providing twelve different horror features on simultaneous playback. It was making him dizzy, and he wished, not for the first time, that enhanced mental capacity came bundled with an off switch. As if turned out, it sort of does.

_"Vash, you're bleeding!"_

The alarm in Meryl's tone, more than her words, brought him back to his senses. His hand instinctively ran its course up his vital organs: liver, spleen, stomach, lungs – or what was left of them in there – eventually finding the crime scene under the tip of his nose. In light of the situation, even a gunshot would have been preferable. Blood drip-drip-dripped on Meryl's white sheets and pounded in his ears like a countdown to an explosion that would permanently decorate her walls with all the colors of the inside of his skull. He wanted to say something, to crack a joke about her popping his cherry and having the sheet to prove it, but his tongue categorically refused to cooperate. Then Meryl's face split into a kaleidoscopic caricature of concern, and before Vash knew it, he was on a crash course to the mattress, barely conscious enough to avoid crushing her in the process.

It wasn't like him to just go and pass out like that in the middle of a crisis, and that was just another testament to how drastically his life had changed ever since he slipped under the radar. But in the old days, such luxury could have cost him his life. In Meryl's bed, the only thing it could have cost him was a chunk of his pride, which would have been kind of like asking a beggar for some spare change.

The first thing his senses picked up as he started coming around was a song. It reminded him of Rem. Perhaps not the voice itself, but the _way_ it was singing. He was already starting to forget the sound of his mother's voice, or at least the voice his dreams had assigned to her. Rem was always in his dreams, _always_, till the day he put a bullet between Legato's eyes. After that, he knew better than to expect seeing her again. But that _voice _– Meryl's voice, he realized – rang clearer and louder with every note, like a reverse-siren luring him away from shipwreck.

_...noticing the days hurrying by_

_when you're in love, my how they-_

"Hi," she – or rather _they_ – said. The three translucent Meryls slowly merging into one solid, smiling face. So radiant was that smile that Vash's own lips stretched into what was a sincere, but probably pale imitation.

"Hey."

The back of her hand, the same one that formed the mean right hook that socked him in the jaw more times than he cared to count, was stroking his cheek. Coming from Meryl, it was a tenderness he came to associate with near-death experiences.

"Am I that scary," she asked, a tinge of shyness rearing itself in her cheeks. She really could be insufferably sweet when she put her mind to it. Vash thought to himself that he would gladly hemorrhage from his nose any day of the week, if it meant waking up to this sort of treatment.

"You're the girl that makes the Humanoid Typhoon pass out like a wuss. How scary is that?"

"Pretty scary," she granted, affecting a thoughtful nod. Her face grew somber sooner than Vash would have liked. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to... rush things."

_Rush things_? He wondered if he really gave off the impression that several years of building up to that moment somehow wasn't enough. And it _had_ been years. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he had taken a shining to Meryl a lot sooner than he would have liked to admit. Lying in his bed in grandma Cheryl's house, he'd occasionally wonder what she was doing, whether she was out there giving some other poor bastard a hard time, with her little typewriter and her pink suitcase and fifty derringers tucked under her cape. But during his six month recovery after October, he'd find himself wondering, not what she was _doing_, but what she was _wearing_. Whether she finally traded the cape and leggings for something just a bit more revealing and whether some other guy was already reaping the benefits. He wanted to punch that guy in the face and pat him on the back at the same time, because Meryl deserved a normal, happy life with a normal, happy husband, but _goddammit_, whenever Vash dared to imagine a life beyond lying in bed waiting for his guts to stop spilling out of his stomach, she was part of the picture somehow, and he didn't want to have to wrestle some stupid, normal, happy guy for her time.

Fast forward two years plus all of Meryl's time he could possibly want, and there he was making her feel like she assaulted him, instead of screwing her six ways to Sunday, like Stupid Normal Happy Guy, to his credit, certainly would. Vash pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes, not knowing a better way to conceal his embarrassment. Wolfwood would have never let him live it down.

"I'm sorry I'm such a dork," he sighed. "Any normal guy would have been all over you by now."

"I've dated a normal guy once."

Vash fanned his fingers just enough to get a peek at her. "You have?"

_Well, of course you have,_ he thought to himself. Sometimes he had to remind himself that having severe intimacy issues was a disorder, rather than the norm.

"Yep. And just between the two of us..." She leaned in and whispered in his ear: "He was a loser."

_Ha! In your face, Stupid Normal Happy Guy._ Feeling a bit more secure, Vash craned his head, unintentionally parking his nose just a few millimeters shy of hers in the process. "Does that make me a winner?"

"That depends," she said. "Do you feel like a winner?"

Wanting neither to lie or answer the question honestly, Vash said the first unrelated thing that came to his mind. "I feel kind of stiff, actually." He bolted out of bed and stretched his arms and neck. Then he started walking aimlessly away from where Meryl sat subtly disappointed. With the room's size being proportionate to that of its owner, it didn't take long for him to bump into a nightstand. It was a solid, old thing with a wooden top; likely an inherited piece of bedroom decor that witnessed the conception of many a folk from the Stryfe bloodline. It was also, beyond a doubt, younger than Vash – a fact that did nothing to soothe his anxiety.

Above the nightstand hung a mirror with a matching frame, and from it, an image Vash still wasn't quite used to stared back at him. It was the head of the Average Joe, framed by a fuzzy mop of black hair and a perpetual five o'clock shadow. The face of a twenty-something nobody who probably spent his days drinking, chasing skirts and, occasionally, sniffing glue. Of course, that was the point. To blend in, to look harmless, disinterested and completely incompetent. But that wasn't, and never would be who he really was.

Sitting on the bed, Meryl studied his face in the mirror with a knowing look, as if his ugly shirt that she had donned somehow granted her mind reading powers. "Open the closet," she said.

Vash cocked an eyebrow at her reflection. "Why, you got a back up boyfriend in there?" He smiled a smile that was almost profound in its shallowness. "I wouldn't blame ya."

Meryl's reflection didn't dignify him with a comment. Thinking about it, he realized that she never was particularly amused by his brand of self-depreciative humor. Tough crowd, compared to most of the people he met in his absurdly long existence.

He opened the closet to reveal way too many business suits and not nearly enough of the fluffy, romantic dresses like the one she had been wearing earlier that evening. There, in a sea of off-white and navy and six different shades of gray, a streak of red stood out like fly in a glass of champagne. It was his old coat, looking exactly as out of place in Meryl's wardrobe as Vash himself felt in the sort of life she was offering him. He picked it off the hanger, noticing, to his surprise, that every little hole and tear had been carefully, if not very skilfully, mended. It might not have been the best patching job in history, but it warmed his heart to think Meryl did it all by herself.

"Gee, Meryl, if you liked it so much, you could have just said so. I'd have ordered one in your size."

Meryl sketched him a smile, but through it, her tone somehow manged to stay serious. "I thought I'd hold on to it, in case you wanted it back."

Vash wasn't sure that he did. The thing brought back too many memories, and not all of them were good ones. Heck, not even most of them were good ones. Just about the only fond memory he could attach to it was finally making peace with his brother, and even that was bittersweet in a way that it made him cry more often than it made him smile. The rest of the things it reminded him of were things he was desperately trying to forget. Things like the time that very same red coat was painted black, or the time when Vash, in a momentary lapse of rationality, used it to keep Wolfwood warm while he went off to dig his grave.

They carried a lot of burdens, those two square yarz of reinforced fabric. And yet, without them, he felt like a turtle out of its shell. It wasn't until the coat's familiar weight landed in his hands that he even realized that.

The building they had cornered him into in New Oregon was blown to smithereens. The only reason the coat survived was because Vash left it several iles behind to act as a decoy. He didn't even want to think about what Meryl had to go through in order for it to end up in her possession.

Suddenly, he didn't feel like cracking any more jokes.

"Did you really think I got out alive?"

Meryl started something with much annoyance – likely, her usual _of course I did_ speech – but when she looked at Vash, standing tall in the red coat that still fit like a glove, her breath hitched and she couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence. She looked at her feet, at her nails, at the floor – anywhere to avoid looking at him.

"I don't think you'll ever know what it was like."

There were more layers to that statement than the number of words in it, and Vash understood, without being told, that she wasn't talking about New Oregon alone. He remembered every touch, every hug, every broken promise and mixed signal he had ever sent her, and the full weight of what his careless flirting did to her came crashing down on him.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry I made you worry."

"You've already said that."

"I don't know what else to say."

"You don't have to say anything. You just need to decide what you want."

There was no reprimand in her tone, not a trace of bitterness. It only made Vash feel even worse about pushing the boundaries of her seemingly endless devotion. She made it sound so simple. As if what he wanted and what he needed and what he knew was right weren't three completely separate things. For weeks, he had been torn between them day in, day out, trying to figure out a way to give her what she wanted without losing himself in the process.

He sat next to her on the bed with his hands on his lap and his heart in his mouth. "You can't always get what you want."

"Don't I know it."

"What if it just wasn't meant to be?"

Meryl frowned. Vash took her warm, fleshy hand in his cold, metal one. "You drink coffee, I drink tea. You're a successful career woman, I'm a washed up career criminal."

"I watch the news, you watch soap operas."

"Daytime dramas," he amended.

Meryl rolled her eyes, "Whatever. Opposites attract?"

"Familiarity breeds contempt."

"The proof of the pudding is in the eating."

"Oh, I've no doubt your pudding is delicious."

"Actually, I'm not a very good cook."

"I wasn't talking about your cooking."

Meryl rammed her fist into his shoulder. He could tell by the lack of vigor that she was flattered.

"Then what's the problem?"

"Honestly? I'm scared."

"So am I," she shrugged, like it was no big deal. "But I'd still like to know what it is that you want."

Vash looked at their bare feet on the floor. They looked like the feet of two people who got along despite their differences. One of hers was on top one of his. If he was being honest with himself, he would have had to admit that, at that moment, he truly didn't give a flying fuck about right and wrong.

The thing is, Vash has a heart that will never shut the hell up. When you have a heart like that, there's little you can do, aside from following its orders. And it was his heart that was pumping all of his blood down south at the thought of making love to her. He knew there were women out there with longer legs and rounder hips and cheekbones sharp enough to cut himself on. (Not with better boobs, though; Meryl's boobs were_ perfect_). But it was _her_ he saw in his mind's eye, arching her back underneath him, _her_ exact weight he felt on his hips as he dreamed the dreams that always added extra items to his laundry list. Dressed in the color of courage, the color of_ love_, a piece of his true self that Meryl kept safe, waiting for the rest of him to return to her, it struck him as cowardly not to face the reality of his feelings.

"I want love," he said, his lifelong desires crystallizing in those three little words. Somehow, it all came together from there.

Underneath her carefully cultivated bitch exterior, Meryl was patient and forgiving and so very kind. The only way to let her down was to give up without even trying. It was with that frame of mind that Vash the Stampede, hunter of peace in pursuit of the elusive mayfly of love, gave himself blindly to the one person who wanted him without qualifications.

* * *

><p>Wow, an update. Many thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed so far. Next time we go back to the present to get a peek inside Meryl's head. Reviews are optional, but they do make me very happy!<p> 


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